For all their concerns surrounding 'lack of procedural due process' in Indian cricket administration, the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) hasn't been able to do much in terms of setting a refurbished system in place the last four months.

The CEO of the BCCI, Rahul Johri, sent out a detailed clarification on Sunday afternoon denying a certain news report that the three-member Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) of the Board asking to be compensated for their meetings to select a head coach for the Indian cricket team.

"BCCI wishes to clarify that there has been no such claim and the story carried by the newspaper is totally baseless and devoid of facts. The contents of this article are malicious and such attempts to dilute and misrepresent the continued contribution of these former legends of Indian Cricket are totally incorrect and unfounded," Johri wrote in his statement. Also, in faraway London, a member of the advisory committee woke up to this piece of news saying "thank you for spoiling such a fine day".

While it is true that the advisory committee has not demanded any compensation for the meetings held to select India's new coach, and while it is also true that no such claim has been made so far, there's no denying that the CoA and the BCCI have failed to draw out a blueprint for the advisory committee and underline what its role is outside of holding the 'odd meetings once or twice a year' to shortlist candidates for the role of a senior national coach.

It can be categorically stated that the CoA is looking to hand out a contract to all those share professional expertise with the BCCI. To that effect, even certain members of the CoA themselves have demanded in the recent past that they should get paid for all the BCCI meetings they attend. The fact of the matter is that the BCCI CoA has made a mess of the process of coach selection, a job that at any given point of time would have otherwise had multiple takers but in the present circumstances has individuals shying away from it.

On May 25, when the BCCI sent out a statement that applications were being called for to select the new coach of the Indian team, the board failed to clarify the need for doing so, given that Kumble has been extremely successful in the role that he was appointed. A top BCCI official had stated at that time: "The due process is being followed".

The CoA, TOI has learned, wants a contract to be signed with the members of the advisory committee identifying their role. When the BCCI old guard was in place, the committee was introduced as an honorary one to "help out the BCCI in matters related to cricket" and nothing was mentioned in black and white. "Now, if you want a contract in place, don't you need to define what exactly the committee's role is? Unless, of course, this is all an arrangement of convenience", an official in the know of things says.

If Kumble's contract expired after a year, the question that BCCI is failing to answer is, "why can't it be renewed, given Kumble's performance? Does the Board's 'procedure' specify that a new coach has to be brought in, regardless of what the existing one has delivered?" The only logical answer to this confusion is that there's something BCCI is not sharing with its stakeholders. o make it worse, the Board and CoA want the advisory committee to do the 'dirty work' of telling Kumble he is not needed, and they expect the work to be done without any compensation.

If the advisory committee is expected to work without adequate compensation, shouldn't the same rule apply to the CoA?